In the last thread, Richard Witty asked what I thought of Israel’s behavior in the Gaza Strip and what I would do about the situation. My response was, “I haven’t the faintest idea.” But Americans for Peace Now just released a statement that makes a lot of sense. You will also find an “Action Alert” […]
Author: Dan Fleshler
AB Yehoshua wants U.S. pressure and denounces the Israel lobby: Anything new here?
Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam notes that Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua called for removing the U.S. ambassador to Israel and attacked America’s Israel lobby. But he missed a few nuances. I might be the only one in the universe who cares about these nuances, as they touch upon some of the work I’ve tried to do […]
Read it and weep: The Peel Commission Report
Bitter Lemons offers the original summary of the Peel Commission Report from 1937, along with commentary from two Israelis and two Palestinians. Everything that needs to be said about this conflict has already been said many times, during the last 100 years (including the preceding sentence, of course). Note the authors’ struggle to balance morality […]
For Zionists, the obsession with Jerusalem is a recent phenomenon
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations recently “reaffirmed its longstanding position that a united Jerusalem should remain the sovereign and eternal capital of Israel,” according to a JTA story. Some left-of-center groups were against it but they could not stem the tide. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the […]
Suddenly, the two-state chorus grows louder, more diverse
Something seems to be brewing out there, something new. I’ve been doing Middle East peace work, on and off, since the mid-1980s. I have never heard so many people from so many different corners of America defying right-wingers (and ultra-left-wingers) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and saying the same things at the same time. What do […]
The peace process, Iran and the law of unintended consequences
At a luncheon panel on Israel and Iran at the Century Foundation yesterday, I was taken aback by some thoughts shared by Trita Parsi, author of the new and highly regarded Dangerous Alliance -The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States, and Daniel Levy, the former Israeli negotiator who is now Director of […]
Heartwarming holiday surprise: Philip Weiss praises liberal Zionists and Israel Policy Forum
In a post that recounts an Israel Policy Forum dinner that I also attended (hat tip to Richard Witty), Philip Weiss describes his joy at discovering what has been available for years, waiting for him to encounter it: a community of American Jews who care about Israel, who consider themselves part of the Israel lobby […]
A diplomatic tool: the “freyer” factor
So just how much pressure can and should the U.S. apply to both Israelis and Palestinians after the Annapolis conference? The “P word” -pressure– still sends chills down the spines of too many mainstream American Jewish leaders, including those who know full well that, at times, Israeli Prime Ministers have desparately needed American pressure to […]
What would you do if you were Israel’s Defense Minister?
There has been no shortage of commentary about the prospects –or lack therof–for successful negotiations after Annapolis. I have yet to read much that is not predictable. But Yediot Aharonot’s military correspondent, Alex Fishman, wrote an original piece today about the concrete challenges facing Israel’s security establishment. It is, of course, politically incorrect in some […]
An approach to the different “narratives”: Don’t let them prevent Arab-Jewish coalition-building
There is a remarkable essay by Hussein Ibish, a Palestinian American who is a Senior Fellow with the American Task Force On Palestine, on the ATFP’s web site. Called “Sense, Nonsense and Strategy in the New Palestinian Political Landscape,” it allows us to eavesdrop on the internal Palestinian American conversation about what is to be […]